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Top international wine prize for Lincoln doctoral student

Lincoln University doctoral student Daisy Dawson is the toast of the wine world.

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Lincoln University doctoral student Daisy Dawson is the toast of the wine world. She has just been named as one of two international winners of Student Grants for 2010 by the Bordeaux-based secretariat of the Great Wine Capitals Global Network.

Daisy and Bernardo Conticelli of Florence, Italy, won from 26 applicants from member cities of the Great Wine Capitals Global network who presented academic research project proposals for judging.

The Great Wine Capitals is a network of nine major cities and associated regions in the northern and southern hemispheres which share in common the key economic and cultural asset of access to internationally renowned wine regions. The cities are Bilbao/Rioja, Spain; Bordeaux, France; Cape Town, South Africa; Florence, Italy; Mainz/Rheinhessen, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina; Porto, Portugal; San Francisco/Napa Valley, USA; and the newest member, Christchurch/South Island, New Zealand.

Daisy's prize is a researcher's stipend valued at 4500 Euro plus 500 Euro for travel to Christchurch from New York where she is currently working, to present her research findings at the Great Wine Capitals AGM in Christchurch in early November.

The aim of the Student Grants is to promote excellence in innovation in wine research. For this year's award the category was research in biodiversity and sustainability or wine tourism and marketing.

Daisy's winning research proposal, which will be an extension of her PhD thesis, spans the fields of wine tourism and marketing.

For her PhD Daisy explored the supply-side of winery owner motivations and business practices connected with wine tourism in Central Otago and the Finger Lakes area of New York. Now her research, funded by the prize, will explore place-based marketing and cross-branding for wine tourism and wine sales from the perspective of winery owners and managers in the South Island of New Zealand, paying particular attention to the potential for leverage that the Great Wine Capitals status of Christchurch/South Island might provide. Daisy's PhD supervisor, Dr Joanna Fountain, Senior Lecturer in Tourism, says the New World wine regions such as New Zealand and Australia are global leaders in wine tourism practice and research, and Daisy's project will "deliver tangible benefits for the on-going development of this aspect of the wine and tourism industries".

The Director of Lincoln University's Centre for Viticulture and Oenology, Dr Roland Harrison, says that Daisy's research, although New Zealand based, will be a "great benefit" to all the wine regions of the Great Wine Capitals Global Network. "Wine tourism is an activity with huge potential for adding valuable new revenue streams to vineyard and wine producing operations."

Daisy was delighted to be able to bring wine and tourism and marketing together in a research project for her PhD and says she is looking forward to the additional project.

"I find tourism so interesting because it can be studied from so many different perspectives and it has so many different impacts. It is such an important global industry and will remain so."

Fellow award winner Bernardo Conticelli will present the findings of his project too at the Great Wine Capitals Global Network AGM in Christchurch in November.